Bjo187
Premiership Player
- Apr 30, 2020
- 3,834
- 5,453
- AFL Club
- Essendon
The North West (Devonport, Burnie etc) is probably the strongest grassroots footy region in the whole of Tasmania and together with Northern Tas (Launceston and surrounds) they have a combined population of approx 270k. Devonport (1 hr) and Burnie (1.5 hrs) are very much within driving distance of Launceston and I’m certain that footy fans from those regions will vote with their feet in support of the Devils.
Four Devils’ games per season will be played at an upgraded UTAS (23k). There are already thousands of NW coasters who attend Hawthorn games. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if there are 5k+ NW Coasters attending Devils games in Launceston, particularly since the Hobart games are far more inaccessible for them. There will surely be membership packages that target supporters who only plan to attend games on their side of the state (e.g. South 7 games, North 4).
Connecting with the whole state has been a core tenet of the Devils ever since the business case was released and it has continued since the club’s board was announced. The board have also been backing this up with their actions so far (e.g. holding cultural fabric sessions all over the state, the club launch being held simultaneously at multiple sites, rotating board meetings between cities etc). The model that’s going to work for Tassie really is very different to what will work for most other clubs, so it’s pleasing that the board are in-tune with this notion so far.
If the 20th club is called Canberra and plays minimal games outside of the capital, then could we expect a similar level of buy-in from people who actually reside in another state? Particularly when a significant percentage of them may follow other codes in addition to/ instead of AFL. Simply, I believe there are more nuanced factors at play in addition to the obvious ones, population and distance. If Canberra’s population keeps growing at current levels then there’ll come a point in time when they won’t even need to worry about the regions anyway.
They'd be a natural connection with snsw through the academy anyway, I just feel one game in the region from the start will bring in a few hundred thousand extra potential fans, which wouldn't be a bad thing for a smaller club to tap into that potential.
On another note, I saw Ainslie football club has revenue of around 30 million per year, they own pokies and a golf club. Would the afl be smart in aligning with the club, unlike the stuff up of not using Southport on the gold coast? Obviously they'd be called Canberra in the big comp, but it would give the club some culture and not cost as much starting another team from scratch again.
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